Fencing: Scanlan shines with epee in hand

Originally a talented multi-sport athlete from St. Paul, Minn., Scanlan started playing basketball in the third grade and was part of a state championship-winning basketball team in sixth grade. She also ran on her school’s cross-country team.

Among the motivating factors for her decision to pursue fencing was the movie “The Parent Trap.” After watching the scene in which the then-11-year-old actress Lindsay Lohan fences against her fictional twin, Scanlan became curious about the sport. When she was 9, she discovered the Twin Cities Fencing Club while leafing through the yellow pages under the guidance of her parents. Just like that, the young Scanlan began a promising amateur fencing career.

Scanlan certainly recognizes that fencing is a demanding sport.

“After I started fencing a lot, I found it was a lot more intense than other sports,” said Scanlan, who has found a comfortable niche in the sport. Her successes to date have earned her the No. 2 ranking in epee in the United States. She was also selected three years ago to be a member of the U.S. junior national team for the Junior World Championships, which will take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in April.

Scanlan had several options when choosing a college to attend but ultimately chose Princeton, where she felt the environment would be conducive to her future successes.

Scanlan’s relationship with Princeton head coach Zoltan Dudas began a few years before she joined the Tigers, over the course of two summer camps at Notre Dame. Dudas, who recognized her potential, was immediately impressed.

“She is one of the fastest players,” Dudas said. “She is currently working hard to find a balance of excellence in offense and defense. She can win most matches easily at the current level of competition. At higher levels of competition, she’ll have to be more patient in her game.”

Having competed against some of the best fencers in Europe, Scanlan has the ability to easily defeat local competition.

Scanlan has been, she admitted, temperamental while fencing. At 14, she got into a fight with a referee about a couple of blown calls that almost got her disqualified from a tournament. Still, despite occasional relapses during fencing tournaments at the world championships, she has made great strides in improving this aspect of her game.

Scanlan took the second semester of her senior year of high school off to fence abroad. She has trained and competed in several countries across Europe, including Sweden, Germany, Austria, Hungary, France and Italy. While all this international experience was invaluable in the development of her fencing skills, Scanlan admits it was not always an easy life to lead.

While European fencers have more time to train and are trained in specialized fencing styles that have been perfected over the years, American fencers are trained through diverse methods and learn different styles that have not produced results against the Europeans. The results at last summer’s Olympics in Beijing, China, suggested a reversal of this trend, however, and Scanlan hopes to become a part of this movement as part of the U.S. national team in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Above all, Scanlan’s teammates recognize that she has a sense of humor.

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“Outside of fencing, Susie is absolutely hilarious,” fellow freshman epeeist Eunice Chan said. “She randomly bursts out into song in the locker room, and she always puts everyone in very high spirits. I really respect how intensely she takes fencing and how she is always training to improve her skill level.”

Scanlan certainly has an impressive series of accolades under her belt already. And with a bit more patience, only the sky would be the limit for her.